I LOVE it here..

Okay.. so I had to put this pic first.. I saw Elder Jason Stinking Peterson at institute in Bern Tuesday night. For those of you guys who don't know, I went to high school with this boy and he is one of my good good friends "missionary". I was so happy to see him! Since this pic is here, I will just tell you about institute first. It's in Bern which is about 1.5 hours via train ride away. Cute Kenzie (love her!) helped me get everything situated and I was off at 1719 (everything here is military time, I love it!) Jk.. I won't use that in my blog, 5:19. I took a train from Grindelwald to Interlaken and then Interlaken to Bern. Earlier this week, cute Simon (pronounced Seemon) from the ward called Kenzie and said if Megan still wants to go to institute tell me her train info and I'll meet her at the platform to show her how to get to her tram.. I was so happy that he called.. He just got his mission call to.. drumroll please.. Provo, UT! Ha.. So I got off the train at Bern and there was Simon and I'm just going to call him Dallin because I think that's his name. They showed me how to take the Tram which I'm so glad they did. I would have found it eventually but everything is in German, I would have been lost. This time, we just took Simon's car.. So we walked to his apartment complex, hoped in the car and was off. Simon speaks English, but either not much or he doesn't say much.. Dallin is the English translator for institute and served his mission in Ukraine. We pulled up, walked in, and there was Elder Peterson. I went to high school with his comp too but I can't remember his name. Elder Peterson showed me the senior missionaries who do the cooking (they get dinner and dessert at their institute ;)) and they were so cute.. I felt so welcomed. The little grandma was like let me take your picture to put on our wall! And the little grandpa looked at the missionaries and said you help her find her tram back so she doesn't miss her train! The institute class was unreal, the missionaries translated for me. After, they showed me my tram and I was off back to Grindelwald. At my tram there were 2 kids I recognized from institute so I started talking to them. One didn't speak English but the other spoke fluent English because he was a foreign exchange student at AF High in 07'-08'. Such a small small world! It was nice to have someone to talk to and laugh about old teachers with! They were really sweet and walked me from the tram to my train and I was off.. I got back home and cute Kenzie was waiting for me at the train station! :) Today it's Megan-Kenzie day. Her mother in law has the day off, she is babysitting and we are heading into Bern. Love love love it here. So here are some updates from my previous week: These few pictures are Audoboden (Auto boden) Kenzie sells Carhartt clothing and has a market coming up on Saturday here, so we went to look around. The whole family was there, Mandel, the kids etc. Audoboden is beautiful.. It reminds me a lot of Park City.

I took this because there are cows EVERYWHERE here. Everywhere literally. No matter where I am in the day, I swear I hear cow bells. Ha. They all wear these bells around their necks and most of them are brown and white.

I'm such a dork but I love love love how everyone here is so proud to be Swiss. There are so many people with flags in their house etc. I love it.

The yellow slide of death. So after Thun, Kenzie and I took the kids to this "Fun Land"... AKA glorified McDonalds play ground. We had to keep climbing, literally, through this foam playground to take Hayden down the slide.. We were sweating by the end ha but it was a blast.

Okay, so here, the clouds get SO low. I love it. I think it is crazy cool.

In case you can't tell, I am having a great time. Sunday we went to church, the missionaries translated, once again.. Poor guys. Ha. The church is in Interlaken and is just a shrunken version of our churches at home. Has just a few rooms. Everyone was really really nice. I love the people here, they are constantly just even trying to talk to me in what little English they know. I'm never coming home :).

Thun

Greutzi Bloggers..

So.. Thursday Kenzie, Bode, Hayden and I headed into Thun (pronounced Toone) to do some shopping and hanging out :). It was a blast. Here are some pics:

Cute little car.

Bode and his Like-A-Bike. Darling little boy.

These pigeons are everywhere.. And they are so not scared of anyone. They got right up to my feet and I was a little shocked. I'm used to birds scurrying away at the sight of any human :)

Me in Thun.

Bikes. Bikes. And More Bikes.

This is kind of cool. This guy was riding a little bike pulling all these. I wanted to hop on.

Cute Cute Hayden.. Love this boy.

This is the Thun castle. Bode was cute and kept calling it the Eiffel Tower. When Kenzie told him it was a castle, he said mommy was the princess that lived in it :)

In Thun, we stopped to eat. I had a tuna fish sandwich. Super original, I know. The one thing about here is people smoke EVERYWHERE. I'm talking like right up in your face smoke is blowing. I hate the smell.. Nevertheless, what do you do? That night, we had a Swiss dinner. I loved it. I can't think of the name off the top of my head, but there was a little grill and we put a thick slice of cheese on kind of a skillet and slipped it in the little grill that just sat in the middle of the table and it cooked and then when it was done, we poured it on top of baby potatoes. It was good. Me and Kenzie "Americanized" ours with some tomatoes, onions, and green peppers. I have fallen in love with the Kafumann family. They are so awesome. I'm so thankful they gave me this opportunity! I have more things to talk about.. Church in a foreign country etc. But as for tonight, I am exhausted and hitting the hay! Guten Nacht!

Interlaken..

My day in Interlaken:

This morning Kenzie and I took Bodee to school and had Oma (grandma) Franie watch Hayden while we headed into Interlaken. Bodee is in preschool. The kids bring slippers, they take their shoes off at the door and wear their slippers at school. It is a sign of respect. We take our shoes off before entering the house too, but today I learned something new. Me and Kenzie get a long really well and it's been fun to talk to her and chit chat. She is sweet. Kenzie was going to the doctors and I was just going to kind of hang out around Interlaken. Interlaken=city between lakes. A little terminology review :). We started at the store which is like a wal-mart, but in a mall. Hard to explain, but each store is a different department. There is an electronics department store, grocery department store, make up department store. It's not all one. I grabbed me some sparkling cider (very popular here and tastes much better than Martinelli's) and was off to do some shopping :) The town is pretty.. There were some chocolate shops, a watch shop etc..

I finally got the guts to attempt to speak some German and had someone take a pic. of me!

Yes. . Those are toilet seats

There are bikes EVERYWHERE. Probably 2 or 3 racks like this within just a few blocks.

Day 1

Bloggers.. I made it to Switzerland! I am finally here! And I am loving it. It's been a blast so far. About my trip, so I took a plane@ 7:50 from SLC to Chicago yesterday. About a 3 hour flight and had an hour and a half layover where I then flew to Philadelphia. Getting off the plane, I had about 45 minutes to get to my other terminal and gate. I got there and everyone was boarding. Perfect timing. I then flew from Philly to Zurich (about an 8.5 hour flight). I got to Zurich at about 8:30 AM (12:30 Utah time). The Kaufmann's who I'm staying with were in Portugal and were supposed to land at about 4 in the afternoon so I hung out in Zurich for about 8 hours. All I heard, all around me was jibberish. I could not understand one thing. So I started asking around. And found a few really sweet people who helped me find my way. I changed my dollars into Franks and was off to the Zurich mall :) I felt like I was still in America, besides the language barrier. Everything was rather expensive though! I ordered a ham and cheese sandwich and the lady said they had no cheese, so I just pointed to something and said that looks great. It ended up being a cheese and pesto sandwich.

At about 4 pm, I finally met the Kaufmann's (who I am staying with). They are darling. Kenzie is the mother, she is from American Fork which is a plus, we have a lot in common, and a lot to talk about. Mandel is her husband, he does not speak very much English but he understands what we say, he is super sweet. Bodee is 4 years old, he is a doll. He is bilingual and has so much personality. Hayden is 18 months and is so funny. He loves to dance and smile. It is a 2 hour drive from Zurich to Grindelwald, where I am staying. On the way home, we stopped at a gas station. We had to pay to get into the bathrooms. You pay for everything here. Everything. It was amazed at the quality of their gas station, there is a ton of bread, fruits, and cheeses for sale. Not rows and rows of potato chips and candy bars and pop etc.. Although there was some of that kind of stuff, there just wasn't a lot. We then finally arrived in Grindelwald. Wow. It is amazing. I will try and post some pictures of the town itself and the cute little shops and hotels. I felt like I was in a movie. That pretty. The Kaufmann home is in the canyon of the Alps. I will post some better pictures, but here is what I have so far.. I live in the same home as the Kaufmann's, but it's not connected. Basically the home I'm staying in is just one big house but it's divided by walls and doors. My house is the only one you have to physically leave the Kaufmann's and walk around the house to. Here is my bedroom:

I finally get to sleep in a queen size bed. This bed is so so so cozy!

My cute blue bathroom. The curtain or whatever on the shower slides across instead of opens and shuts. Interesting.

Side view of my little house.

The front door to my apt.

Looking up to the rest of the house, 4 families live in this house.

I witnessed an avalanche last night where all that snow is.

My view from my front porch.

Another view from my porch.

Today, I woke up at about 8:30. I have not had any jet lag whatsoever. Seriously. I walked up to the Kaufmann's and the family was sitting together eating cold cereal. I don't think that happens very much in America. Mandel had the day off so we headed into town to go to the grocery store. The town of Grindelwald is unreal. Breathe taking. Every home looks just like it does in the movies. Made of wood with flower pots below the windows and shutters. There are a bunch of little shops that are darling and it's just a small town (population 4-4.5k). You pay for parking anywhere you go. and you also deposit money to get a shopping cart. If you put the shopping cart back, you get your money back. Smart. The market was small but I enjoyed every minute of it, just because it's different to me. Foreign. I was just kind of looking around to see what they sold and if there was anything particular that stood out to me. I then stumbled upon a bag of chips. On sale from $7.90 to $5.50. Wow. They do not have baggers at the grocery store, we brought our own bags and bagged everything ourselves. They are all about recycling. Less really is more here. After grocery shopping, we came back and made lunch. Lunch is the biggest meal of the day. Kids come home from school, husbands from work, etc. In fact, they don't even have lunchrooms at the schools. The food isn't too foreign, just a lot of sausage, beef, and bread. After lunch, we had a little bit of R&R time and then went mini golfing. The course didn't have green felt, but was made out of cement and was extremely difficult. Bodee was having the time of his life and would not leave one hole until he was satisfied with the number of times he tried on the previous. I swear with every hole he would say "this is my favorite one!" And then we got to the very end and he said "I don't like this one, it takes your ball away."

We then went back home and the families who live in the home (also in-laws) were outside playing. 1 spoke English. The rest spoke German. I had no idea what anyone was saying so I played tractors with the little boys until dinner time :) ha. For dinner, we had 2 different kinds of cheeses, one from France that was delicious and another one that was extremely rich. We had bread, sausage, and ham. Extremely delicious. And now here I am, sitting in my bed about to head to bed! Tomorrow, Mandel's mom is going to watch Hayden while Bodee is in school and me and Kenzie are going to head down to Interlaken. She is getting her ultrasound to find out what gender her baby is and we'll get to spend some time downtown. I can't wait!

Auder!

Me..

I AM.. a dreamer.

I THINK.. that I can do anything.

I KNOW.. the church is true.

I WANT.. to be a billionaire so freakin bad.

I HAVE.. been blessed.

I MISS.. being little.

I HEAR.. music.

I SMELL.. hair dye.

I CRY.. when life doesn't go my way, like a 3 year old little girl. Ha.

I CRAVE.. barbie flavored snow cones, all the time.

I SEARCH.. to find myself.

I WONDER.. where I'll be in 5 years.

I REGRET.. a lot of things.

I WISH.. i could fast forward time to May 22nd.. Switzerland, here I come :)

I LOVE.. my life.

I CARE.. maybe too much.

I ALWAYS.. giggle.

I WORRY.. a little too often.

I AM NOT.. going to be happy if the Jazz loose tonigiht.

I REMEMEBER.. everything.

I BELIEVE.. in myself.

I SING.. loud and off-key, but I sing.

I AM NOT ALWAYS.. smart, but I learn from my mistakes.

I ARGUE.. far too much.

I WRITE.. and I love it.

I LOOSE.. my sanity, slowly everyday.

I LISTEN.. to those around me.

I DON'T UNDERSTAND.. life, it's unfair.

I CAN USUALLY BE FOUND.. at work or in my room.

I NEED.. to laugh more.

I FORGET.. things when I want to.

I AM HAPPY.. most of the time.

today, i cleaned my room. changed my sheets, wiped down my walls, cleaned out my closet and drawers. it feels good to be organized once again. amongst all the clutter and mess, i found a notebook with quotes. words to live by.

"hope is putting faith to work when doubting would be easier." -anonymous

"and the trouble is, if you don't risk anything, you risk even more." -erica jong